Word.ws English Dictionary

shown one's true colors

shown one's true colors is the past participle of show one's true colors.

Meaning of show one's true colors

Verb

show one's true colors (third-person singular simple present shows one's true colors, present participle showing one's true colors, simple past showed one's true colors, past participle shown one's true colors or (US also) showed one's true colors)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To reveal how one really is, as opposed to how one has been portrayed or after having been deceptively and deliberately misleading.

Questions about shown one's true colors

What is shown one's true colors the past participle of?
Shown one's true colors is the past participle of show one's true colors.

Words near shown one's true colors in the dictionary

  1. shown one's cards
  2. shown one's claws
  3. shown one's hand
  4. shown one's stuff
  5. shown one's teeth
  6. shown one's true colors
  7. shown one's true stripes
  8. shown one's work
  9. shown oneself
  10. shown out
  11. shown round

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shown one's true colors (page history and authors); show one's true colors (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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